


Grounding

by mrhd



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 16:51:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8454271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrhd/pseuds/mrhd
Summary: Roy finds himself feeling off-kilter after the final battle. The Elrics help.





	

It’s all pretty chaotic; the tense and wild energy never ends with the battle. Especially when said battle has left what Roy assumes is a large crater in the middle of the city.

Assumes, because he can’t see. He’s sitting out of the way, listening, try to sort through the mess of noises around him. He’s been separated from Hawkeye for the first time since she’d last put her hand on his shoulder, and he feels alone without her presence. She’d protested being sent to the medical tent to get looked at, but Roy could feel her weakening and leaning more and more on him, and he remembers blood pouring from her neck, one of the last things he’ll ever see now. He takes a deep breath to steady himself. _Riza will be fine_ , he tells himself. _And so will I_.

He tries to sort through all the noise again, to distract himself from the panic slowly building in his chest, but he doesn’t have much success. He thinks he can hear a few sets of footsteps make their way towards him, and he hears Ed swear, and focuses on the odd tread (Automail malfunction? A serious injury?) as it comes closer to him.

“Sit down next to him, Al,” he hears Ed say.

There’s some good-natured grumbling, but then another body settles itself next to him.

“Hello, Colonel.”

Roy feels himself smiling, feeling some of his anxiety and despair lighten with the sound of Alphonse Elric’s voice, clear and boyish, and with absolutely no metallic echoes. “Hello, Alphonse,” he says. “You sound well.”

Al laughs, and it’s so different without the metallic ring, so much happier and light. “Thank you,” he says.

There’s some clunking and thudding, and then Edward’s voice comes from in front of and below Roy, he must be sitting on the ground in front of the bench. “Ow.”

“You should get your arm checked out, Brother,” Al says.

“Please, like you’re one to talk,” Ed scoffs. “You can barely walk a few feet.”

“Well _someone_ spent the past five years depriving my body of milk,” Alphonse retorts. “I hope I don’t end up as short as you.”

Roy is left trying to figure out what that all means, why Ed’s dietary choices would affect Alphonse’s body, while the brothers continue sniping at each other.

“I should have left that bratty part of you back at the damn gate.”

“After all that you wouldn’t have _dared_.”

“Wait-” Roy interrupts, holding up a hand. How much had happened silently in that last few hours? “What’s wrong with your arm, Edward?”

“Nothing,” Ed says at the same time Al says, “Which one?”

“My right arm is fine,” Ed protests. “In fact, both of my arms are _fine_.”

“What’s wrong with his right arm?” Roy asks Al, turning is face to where he thinks the boy is sitting.

“It’s weak from spending five years trapped in the gate,” Al says. “And Brother keeps forgetting and putting his whole weight on it and then falling.”

“It’s not that bad,” Edward protests. “I just need to get used to the feeling of flesh over all the automail screws, it’s weird.”

“Your arm grew back _over_ the automail port?” Roy wishes he could see what Ed is talking about, and he resists the instinct to touch out and touch the boy’s shoulder to find out.

“It didn’t grow back, it got put back,” Ed says, like that’s obvious. Roy imagines him rolling his eyes. “But yeah, I guess, Al traded his soul back for my arm, but the gate didn’t get rid of any of the bracings or anything. So there’s still metal there. It’s making it weird to move my shoulder.”

“You should see a doctor about that,” Roy says. “Or your mechanic, maybe.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Ed insists. “I can wait for Winry to take a look at it when I get back to Resembool.”

“You’re not fine,” Al protests. “Your other arm is still gushing blood. From where you were _impaled_.”

Roy remembers Riza whispering in his ear, explaining that Edward was trapped by a rod of metal pinning his arm in place as an angry god approached him.

“It’s mostly stopped,” Ed argues.

Instinctively Roy tries to open his eyes to look at Edward’s arm and see exactly how much he’s downplaying his injuries. But of course, his eyes are _already open_ , and it’s more than enough to unsettle him. He lets out a gasp, before reaching up to try and rub at his eyes. His hand spasms half way there though, bones and muscles and skin still torn and broken from Bradley’s blades.

“Are you okay, Colonel?” Alphonse, next to him, shifts closer and Roy figures that he’s probably trying to get a look at Roy’s hand.

“They’ll heal,” Roy says, even as gentle fingers settle around his wrist.

“I’m gonna take your glove off,” Ed says, before he tugs the glove off of Roy’s left hand, working it slowly off when it catches on dried blood.

Roy feels the brush of air over his hand, stinging the wound, and it’s less than a second before, “Colonel, you need to see a doctor,” comes from his left, and “What the fuck happened?” comes from in front of him.

“They had to hold me in place while they forced me to open the portal,” Roy says. “Turns out that running someone’s hands through with swords is an effective way of pinning them to the ground.”

Ed’s fingers tighten slightly around his wrist. “You should get them looked at,” he repeats. “You don’t want them to heal wrong. You’re not done yet.” Roy hears Ed take a deep breath and then lighten his voice. “The longer you take to get to the top, the longer you’re 520 cenz poorer.”

“You were serious about that.”

Ed snorts. “I don’t make promises that I don’t intend to keep.”

Just as Roy thinks that the warm body to his left is proof of that, Al says, “Yes you do. You promised me once that you would drink more milk. But you haven’t had _any_ since that conversation.”

“That doesn’t count!” Ed protests. “I was distracted by things more important than milk promises.”

Al gives a long suffering sigh. “Don’t you remember that time when we were on the island-”

Edward cuts him off with a protest (“I said ‘ _maybe_ ’!”) and Roy lets the Elrics’ bickering wash over him and resists the urge to laugh. If Edward and Alphonse can snipe about inconsequential things; things like milk and childhood promises, then they’re in a good place. They’ll be alright, all of them.

Besides, Ed was right, Roy _does_ want his 520 cenz back.


End file.
